Perceived Lunacy
by neefflove
Summary: Sometimes when you sign to do a job you end up signing your life away. That's exactly what happened to Delaney Harper when she agreed to enter the resistance. She thought that the worst that could happen to her was death, but what she got was worse. She was stuck with the cureds, left screaming in the inside while playing the part on the out. She might as well be dead.
1. Prologue

It's funny how sometimes the cures are worse then the diseases. Sometimes the cures actual bring out the very thing they are trying to whisk away. Like the cure for insanity for example. The doctors monitor and record, they employ reason, psychiatry, mind games, but all they end up doing is pushing pills and needles into a guinea pig just hoping that something will work to alter their brain function and produce whatever outcome they perceive to be sane. Doctor's are the epitome of defiance of nature. They believe they are curing evil, but are really only creating mayhem. When Florence Abernathy decided that all diseases stem from one horrible Delirium it caused a ripple effect. Passion became poison, creation became carnage, and love became lunacy.

Developing the cure for the newly declared terminal disease of love meant the abolishment of freedom. This highly contagious disease was easily spread by touch, the exchange of passionate words and has even been recorded to have been spread at first sight. Abernathy declared that love is the bacterium from which all illnesses manifest. It is the cause of insomnia, trouble catching a breath, depression and even the cause of more serious diseases. Love can break your heart causing heart attacks and other deadly diseases therefore love has been declared nothing more then a deadly nascence that is to be feared and taken every precaution against. Amor Deliria Nervosa is the new black plague and Abernathy is the priest meant to Baptist the world of it.

At the beginning of the governments crusade to rid the country of the Delirium they began building walls and fences, outposts and cure facilities, and they threw every resister into the crypts to waste away except for those who escaped to the wilds, the areas outside the fences where the disease was free to run rampant. The disease was finally eradicated when the president ordered the Blitz in 2054. They sent in every aircraft that was available to them and bombed out the wilds, destroying whole cities of Americans that refused to move into the new Delirium free quarantined areas. They had defeated the disease that threatened their perfect society, or so they thought.

Like cockroaches, love survives even if humanity doesn't. It breeds in the cracks and crevices of the bombed out society waiting to make it's come back. The invalids are a myth they tell themselves, but deep down they know that we are coming for them. They fear us as they tremble behind their fences pretending that their disease is the stuff of history. History repeats it's self if you're not careful. Like the rise of the zombies the invalids will get their time. Some might say we are crazy to go up against the cureds and their guns and plains while we just barley survive with sticks and rocks, but those are also the people that tell you you're crazy if you feel something. To them love will be infectious. It will infiltrate their societies, take control of their people, and take its rightful place as the wonder of humanity once again.

Sometimes it actually matters how you are perceived by other people. If others think you are crazy and treat you that way you will start to believe it yourself. You might even begin to go crazy. If they have the power to detain you, shove pills down your throat, poke around in your brain, and take everything from you that you hold to value then there is not much left to do, but go insane. You're not yourself. You're not even what they expect you to be. You're just an empty shell. You are a nut case because you're human. Somehow the world has become so twisted that the heartless are considered in their right mind.

The difference from this side of the fence and the other is night and day, black and white, zombies and invalids. Here it is tasteless and bitter, colorless and empty air. The lack of emotion on this side is so apparent that the life of the party is here at Abernathy House, home to the mentally ill and other wise terminally diseased. The only reason those of us that are here at Abernathy House and not killed or thrown in the crypts to rot away is simply for the sake of science they tell us. We are lab rates to be studied and nothing more than that.

I had freedom once. Room to roam freely. I didn't mind the lack of food or shelter, I was raised that way. The wilds have been my home forever until I was pushed into the resistance. I didn't want to leave the wilds, but they made me feel as though it was my duty so I went. When I left they didn't tell me where I would be ending up. I was expecting either success in my placement in San Francisco or death, but what I got was much worse. I was left here, with the zombies who suffered the risks of the procedure, the defectives. Some were in their right minds, but most suffered brain damage from early procedures or they just couldn't take the surgery. All of use here have the same three pronged scar etched behind our ears, but the difference is mine is faked. When an invalid enters the resistance they get the mark, the mark of a heartless so we can blend in and infiltrate their society. We must abandon emotion and let cruelty and logic take its place creating a void. You do not have your freedom to fill that void so it becomes a shell. You have a new name, a new life and you are left to watch the emotionlessness of the zombies unfold. My shell is called Delaney Harper and she is an inmate at Abernathy house just waiting for her chance to run free.

~~~~ Just an FYI if you haven't read the book. When I say zombies it's not referring to the undead. A zombie is just a term they use referring to the people who have had the cure for love. I hope you like it so far. Thanks for reading and please leave any comments! ~~~~


	2. Repetition

Repetitive noises are known to upset the mind. The constant drip of a leaky faucet, the creek of an old fan spinning lazily, the distant hums of the ramblings of a fellow inmate, it's enough to make someone loose their mind. I guess that's not much of a problem if it's already gone. The thin lumpy mattress doesn't protect my tail bone from the hard metal of the springs underneath, but I am used to it. Actually it is kind of comforting to feel something hard again. Everything on the other side of the fence is so easy if you follow the rules, which kind of only makes me want break them that much more. There is nothing to do, but sit. Sitting in the quart yard. Sitting in the day room. Sitting in the evaluation centers. Sitting in the dark.

I sit with my legs drawn up onto my dingy mattress and trace my marks. I trace the scraps on my hands and knees that I have been used to my whole life. The Wilds aren't a very forgiving place. I trace the dots on my shoulders and arms that detail the injections and transfusions that I have been subject too. And finally I trace the three raised bumps that lay just behind my ear that brand me as a cured, a defective one at that. Usually if a procedure has proven to be ineffective it is administered again, and again, and again until either it takes or in most cases the subject dies. I suppose I should feel lucky that when my fake procedure had been ruled ineffective I was sent to Abernathy House rather than actually being administered the cure, but I can't bring my self to feel lucky for being here. I am a lab rat, kept only for research. Research they will use to prefect their unnatural crusading.

When I was in the Wilds I felt as if I was the essence of natural. There was nothing more wholesome than the rawness of my sense of belonging. Here I am a zombie. Not by procedure, but by the shear breaking of my will. I was cured simply by the taking of what I hold most dear. My empty shell sits and lets the cureds examine her. She plays the part they expect her to play. She falls under the radar and gains the advantage of underestimation. She waits as the rattling of her cell door post cedes the opening of it. She has learned their routine and studied it and she examines them as they her. She has mastered their acting abilities. They act as though there is more to them than logic and she acts the opposite. She has become the epitome of what they are trying to achieve only to snatch it out from under them when she gets her chance. When my superiors in the revolution decided on a name for my cured ID's they displayed the humor that we as uncureds have kept. Delaney has a Gaelic meaning, it means child of dark defiance and that's exactly what I intend to do. Defy. The heavy metal door on my prison slowly creeps open revealing one of the most sickening orderlies, Arnold. He has mastered his companionate mask so well that it makes me sick to my stomach knowing that it is fake.

"Delaney, it's time for your meeting with Sarah." He says with a voice that reminds me of the inviting colors of a poisonous frog. He wheels his tray in and begins rifling through the drawers searching for the syringe with my name on it.

"It really is an incredible bore to talk about my thoughts for hours." My voice chimes in a monotone as I hold out my arm ready to embrace the impending injection. He gives a chuckle that is the essence of fake and meant to be taken that way.

"It will help you with your recovery." Arnold says replaying the lie that I have heard many times before. The only recovery they are interested in is the recovery of control. He pushes the needle further and further into my arm searching my face for any signs of something other than solitude.

"Well if it must be done." I say with a small forced smile. Arnold pulls the cold syringe from my vein and quickly dabs a cotton swab at it ready to absorb the coming blood. I don't know what they have been pushing into me over the past few months, but I'm doing whatever I can to make them think its working.

"And it must." Arnold says continuing the small talk. The lack of emotion behind his eyes makes me nauseous as they examine me. It's unnatural, inhuman, but I don't let this show on my face. I simply keep the steely expression that I have learned to mimic from them so well.

Arnold tosses out the cotton swab before returning to his tray and pulling out my pills. He presses them into my palm and watches as I pop them into my mouth one by one. He is only satisfied when I open my mouth and lift my tough so he can be certain they have gone down.

"I have your change of cloths," he says pulling my gray sweats and t-shirt from the bottom of his cart. They're clean and ready for another day's use, "I'll give you a minute to change." He pulls the heavy metal door closed behind him. I wait five seconds like always before throwing myself to the floor. I shove three fingers down my throat as far as they will go holding them there through violent gags until finally the three small lumps raise up and out. I don't waste any time once the small blue pills are back in my hand wading in a puddle of salvia. I work my way shoving myself under the hard metal frame of the bed until I can reach the wall. This small rock of concrete had been worked out of its place in the wall long before I got here, but I have made great use of it. I push it aside and place the three pills in the small alcove behind it before quickly shoving it back in place. Promptly I jump to my feet and struggle to remove my t-shirt and replace it with the identical clean one. I do the same with the sweat pants before slipping on the dingy white slippers by the door in preparation for Arnold's return. It doesn't take long before he is back to escort me to my session with Sarah. He shoos me out the door and into the oddly light hall. It is obvious by the looks of the facilities that Abernathy house was once used as a residential area, an apartment complex or something. Sometimes in the Wilds we would stumble onto places like this. They were obviously damaged from the bombing, but they made easy shelter for a night. We couldn't stay long, something like that attracts too much negative attention.

I walk flanking Arnold down the familiar corridors past the mumblers and the droolers who spend their day sitting in the halls waiting for medications and examinations. We make our way through the day room where the more "successful" cases spend their time and finally we arrive at Dr. Sarah Stafford's front door. She is waiting inside with the door open and a condescending smile plastered on her thin lips.

"Good Morning Delaney." Her dead voice tries to sound welcoming.

"Good Morning Dr. Stafford," my forced monotone sounds, "it's nice to see you." I say fakely, she knows it's insincere, but hopefully she thinks so because of their medical efforts with me. If I were like them nothing would be nice.

"Yes, sit down." She says motioning to the seat in front of her. I do as told as much as it pains me. "So, how are you feeling this morning?" on this side of the fence feeling is a dead word and when it is said it is weighted with a different meaning, it's a façade.

"I'm a little tired. It's not that easy to get to sleep around here. Some of the other patients can get a little noisy at night." I say trying to stick to physical states that can be associated with feeling.

"I can imagine." She says with a smirk. She could never imagine. She couldn't even imagine if she still had the ability to use something other then so called logic. "You have made a very big improvement since your first month at Abernathy House." She says plainly, "do you remember what you were like when you first arrived?" her expression appears judging, but when does it not.

"Yes, I remember. It's quite embarrassing looking back." I say with a forged chuckle. Actually looking back I want to cry. When I first came here I still had the Wilds in me. Now my fierce animal quality has been sucked out just like the love that was sucked out of Dr. Stafford.

"Do you see how much better your life has gotten? We have removed you from wing C and me and the rest of your doctor are having a meeting today to determine if placement in wing A will be good for you." Her short brown hair bobs as she says this with falsified enthusiasm. Wing A consists of the patients who they believe they have cured, the ones kept to study their improvements.

"That would be very nice." I mimic her enthused gestures while holding down my own. Gaining the advantage of underestimation is my only chance at freedom. I will get one chance and I am about to make it count.


	3. The Underestimated

When the door to my cell swung open this morning I felt the thinnest bit of happiness, but the most I have felt since I have been on this side of the fence. When Arnold handed me my pills and clean cloths he also gave me a small card board box and told me to get together my belonging and then join him in the hall. Dr. Stafford and the others had approved my transfer to wing A.

Standing in this almost empty cell I can't help, but wonder what they expect me to fill this box with. Sure the inmates in wing B are allowed more possessions then I had in my padded cell in wing C, but none of these things belong to me. There is a little blue hair brush with thin plastic bristles, I drop that in the box, I slide out the bottom draw of the bed side table and remove the extra pair of slippers, the small stack of socks, and the extra blanket for when the heater is out from the monthly black out and drop them in the box. I have all the things that "belong to me" now I just need the only thing that I belong to in this hell whole. I take one quick glance at the door to make sure I am not being observed before I yank the handle to the top drawer and send it clattering to the floor. There, wedged in between the panels of wood on the back of the drawer is my one and only belonging. I quickly pull the small, tattered photograph out of its hiding place and fold it up, careful not to create any new fold marks on the old paper then already there, and shove it into my sports bra close to my heart. I put everything back in its place and then gather myself and my "belongings" before shoving into the hall. I follow Arnold under the buzzing lights of the hall and to the elevator that I haven't been allowed in since two armed orderlies escorted me in on a gurney.

Stepping out into the open air for the first time in months overwhelms me. When the wind picks up my ash blonde curls whipping them wildly around my face I have to use all my will power just not to smile. My eyes are pinched shut by the brilliant light of the sun only making me want to open them wider to take it all in. The small little window covered with mesh in my cell couldn't do justice to the beauty of outside that I remembered to fondly. Even though it is almost ruined by the perfect symmetry in the way the bushes are planted and the pristine-ness of the cut and leafless lawn I am as close to home as I can be on this side of the fence.

The short walk from the brick building that has been my prison for the past months to my new jail leaves me longing for that breeze again. Arnold nudges me along gently, but coldly in through a rusty old door at the back of a large building with a big white doom on top. The inside is all the same. The same clinical looking lobby. The same orderlies lazily going about there business. The same horrible unnatural lights that seem to turn everything a sickly green color in their glow, but I don't care because I know that I am one step closer to the wilds. I am one step closer to freedom where the breeze is ever changing and the air never sleeps.

Arnold escorts me down the hall until he stops in front of an open door and directs me inside where there are two small beds that don't look anymore comfortable then the ones in wing B, a large window on the far wall with thin white curtains draped around them, beside the two beds is matching tables and a whole dresser full of drawers.

"You'll have a roommate over here," Arnold says pointing out the obvious, "It will be nice to have some company won't it?"

"Yes I think it will." I reply reluctantly, a small smile creeping across my face. With out another word Arnold swishes down the hall, his scrubs rubbing nosily. My smile grows with the realization that I will never see Arnold's fake compassion ever again, at least not from him.

The bed nearest gave barely a hint that anyone had occupied it except for the glass of water on the bed side table. My inmate seems to be one of them, a successful cure. A dull lifeless shell. On the dresser is a lamp and some small worn down pieces of charcoal. Pieces of paper are stacked beside it with things like apples and the landscape outside the window drawn with extreme accuracy. Lined up along the back of the dresser is a bunch of round rocks organized from largest to smallest. I pick up the smallest pebble and turn it over and over in my palm. What I wouldn't give to have this as my bed rather then these mattresses.

"You can put that down." A sharp voice startles me. A middle aged woman with a pinched expression stares back at me from the doorway. "You must be Delaney, Dr. Richards told me you would be here when I got back." The woman says, her disposition no more thrilled then before.

"You are?" I ask sticking my hand out mechanically for her to shack it.

"My name is Beatrice." She says while giving my outstretched hand an apprehensive glare as if deciding if I will spread my disease to her by a hand shake or not. "I don't mind you being here I would just appreciate if you kept to yourself on your side of the room and let me have mine." She says sticking her large triangular nose in the air. With her black hair pulled back sleekly she almost reminds me of s black bird with her loud squawking.

"Yes, of course. I just was surprised to see they allow you to keep those in here." I say nodding my head in the direction of her collection of rocks.

"Oh yes, we are allowed a lot of things. I just keep these because I like to have something to draw when the subject matter runs out." Beatrice crows. I can sense that Beatrice is done talking so I turn on my heels and head back to my small corn of the room.

"It was nice to meet you Beatrice." I say the pleasantries mechanically and without feeling. Beatrice gives a small huff of fake agreement. "Oh Beatrice!" I exclaim, "When do we tend the garden?" The inmates of wing A tend to the grounds spending hours out doors racking leaves and weeding the garden. It's supposed to help assimilate the cureds to everyday life.

"Every other morning. We are going out tomorrow." Beatrice answers seeming to be astonished that I would bother to bug her again. Tomorrow morning… Tomorrow morning I will use my one and only chance… Tomorrow morning I will be free.


	4. Her Kind

It's a lake of emotionless faces in the common rooms here. At least in wing B they had some character with the drool dribbling down their faces. Here no one has light inside their eyes, their dead, every single one of them.

No matter how long I have been on this side of the fence I can never get used to the enormity of which they waste food. The cafeteria is nothing but endless stretches of tables piled high with food. There is bread made from every grain imaginable, pastas dripping with sauces, fruits and vegetables to match every color of the rainbow. Why do the emotionless get what can bring happiness to those in the wilds, but then I guess that's just how the world works. You choose the easy path then you have to play by someone else's rules.

"Once you have your food then go over to the nurse's desk and get your medication." Beatrice maneuvers her way around the tables with ease, plucking exactly the piece of watermelon off of the plate that she wants not even giving it a second thought. She has been assigned to show me the daily routine although it doesn't seem much of a routine compared to wing B. Over here you are meant to do as you please. Roam freely around the common room, watch the news drown its usual lies, read the news papers, Beatrice prefers to sketch. I know it's all lies though. This is no freedom. There are still locks on the doors and a fence towering outside. However I do as told and make my way over to the nurse's desk. She hands me a small paper cup with my same tree blue pills in it. I dump them in my mouth and she gives a small smile, she does not ask me to open my mouth and lift my tongue the way Arnold did, I simple take my small tray of food and walk away.

The sweet taste of the outer capsule of the pill starts to fill my mouth as it disintegrates under my tongue. I quickly take a large spoon full of mashed potatoes and maneuver with my tongue smashing the pills into the potatoes and drop the pill filled potatoes back to my plate.

I finish my meal quickly and return to my cell. Thankfully Beatrice had decided to stay in the common room to hear the evening news. I get together the things I will need for tomorrow. In the top drawer of my bedside table I store three granola bars I had kept in my sleeves when leaving the cafeteria, two bars of soap and a couple tubes of tooth pasted I had stolen from the bathroom closet, and the white sweet shirt they had left in the drawer here for me. Once I was in the wilds any of these things could mean the difference between life and death.

Lastly I shoved my hand to the back of the drawer and drew out the little folded photograph. I unfold it carefully, my heart stopping ever time my fingers feel the small vibration of a tear of the paper. The same scene stared back at me as always even though the white fold marks have widened a bit. I have kept it on my since the day I found it. We were migrating to Arizona to meet up with some of the higher ups in the revolution. Because of the conditions out there, there are barely any fenced areas. Out in the middle of the desert we found a small house that had survived the blitz, but the family that lived there did not. The house was barely standing from the bullet wholes riddling its frail wood and the burnt remains of a shed lied in the back. We found what was left of the family with the ashes. It didn't seem right, but we did what we had to do. We searched the house and what was left of the shed for anything we can use. We found some sort of bomb shelter at the base of the shed probably build in anticipation of the blitz. All of the food and supplies were cleared out, someone had gotten there first. On the dusty ground of the shelter I found the photograph of what I can only assume is the family whose remains lied a few feet away… It showed the house with a picnic table sitting in front. Standing with a big proud smile on his face is a middle aged man he's hair was balding, but he still looked perfect. He had his arm slung around a woman's shoulders. Her dark brown hair waves around her face. The picture has her caught while she is talking to a little boy sitting at the picnic table playing with his food. Beside him is a girl about as old as I was when I went into the resistance. She has the woman's same dark hair tucked back in a pony tail. A huge smile of laughter is spread across her face as she plays with a small child with wild blonde curls sitting on the table in front of her. Something about this photo makes it impossible for me to go with out it. The carefree happiness that I see in this family is something I can only dream about. This is who humans are. These laughing, loving creatures. I keep it to remind me of that.

I feel a lump rising up in my throat as I look at this photograph which had once been the picture of a happy life. The water marks seeping at its edges and the fold marks make it nothing, but a memory, one that was not even mine to have. A loud sob rips through the quite room and I realize I need to quite myself. I let the sobs leek out quietly until I am empty and then I return the photograph to its hiding place. It has gotten dark outside the window and something jumps inside my spirits. On night, one night and I am my self again. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and let myself smile, really smile, for the first time since my spirit died.

"I knew it." A disgusted voice sounds from behind me. Beatrice stares at me with horror on her face. "I knew you were defective." My stomach flipped with fear once I realized what I had done. I slipped up, I screwed myself over. I got careless and my emotions get the better of me. I have no grounds to deny it. Cureds don't get like this. Any second now Beatrice is going to turn and run. She is going to tell the nurses, the orderlies, and the guards and then I will be gunned down or worse… stuck here for the rest of my life. I start planning my move. I could attack Beatrice before she has the chance to ruin me. I could grab her by the throat and hold on until she stops kicking. I could even make it look like an accident somehow or suicide. That would even be a little slap in the face for the Doctors, one of there cureds wasn't cured after all. It would be easy.

"I saw you take that stuff from the bathroom earlier… and the cafeteria. You're going to run… aren't you?" Beatrice says in a dead tone. I don't respond I'm busy weigh my opinions. I could make a break for the bathroom, break the mirror and stab a piece of glass through her heart. She could have done that to herself. I wait for Beatrice to make her move, but she never does. She just stares at me with her small dark eyes.

"What are you doing?" I ask hesitantly. Why hasn't she gone to get the guards?

"You'll be gone tomorrow either way. You'll get shot down or something. It's none of my business… Just stay away from me until then." Beatrice says coldly narrowing her always narrowed eyes even more. I'm am so stunned that even when Beatrice simple lays down and begins trying to go to sleep I can't even relax. Why would she do this? I'm the very thing that her kind hates the most. Why doesn't she do what her kind does and try to destroy me?


End file.
